


“Have I ever lied to you?”

by jojojoji



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Requests, barbecues & kids & food fights, domestic as fuck, drabble prompts, fucking blue-eyed cult leaders and their gorgeous siblings, how she doesn't burn when she sets foot in the uilding, is a question the tootsie pop owl couldn't answer folks, nor shitty potato salad, oh my!, prompts, rook in church without the cleansing rain of gunfire, we all knew this day would come, we do not condone watery mac n' cheese on this christian minecraft server
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 09:26:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16553192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jojojoji/pseuds/jojojoji
Summary: Rook gets invited to a sermon after things have settled between Eden’s Gate and The Resistance, and though she has her reservations about the whole thing, Joseph’s able to get her to agree.TL:DR - Fucking Joseph Seed & his fucking blue eyes.





	“Have I ever lied to you?”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“I honestly have no idea. Eighty-five percent of what comes out of your mouth is either prophecy or scripture. One-hundred percent, of which, give me cluster headaches and inevitably lead to me dissociating in the middle of the conversation.”

Joseph’s lips purse into something thin, restrained, obviously holding back a frown, definitely a scolding.

Your lips purse too, only because if you crack a grin here, the disappointed ‘father’ will dissolve into the angry ‘dad’ underneath, and when that happens, you lose your shit.

From there’s, it’s just a downward spiral of you laughing until you’re wheezing for breath and Joseph disguising profanities by reciting psalms until his throat goes hoarse or you clutch your stomach with tight fingers, tears in your eyes, begging him to stop, it hurts, you can’t breathe—

Joseph sighs, heavy and bone-tired, and you think you’ve saved yourself from the situation, are about to take your leave - for both your sakes - but then he’s reaching up for his face and you freeze in-place.

“Joseph—“

He doesn’t stop, gingerly eases those fucking glasses off his face, folding the arms neatly, tucking them carefully in his pocket.

“Don’t— You know that isn’t—“

His eyes - blue, too blue, why are they so fucking blue, this isn’t fair, tsunamis aren’t natural disasters, they’re the ocean fuming at the fact that his eyes are more gorgeous than it’d ever be, blue wasn’t an actual color until he’d opened his eyes for the first time - are peering at you, through you, into you.

“Fair.” You finish lamely, as he walks into your space, fingers coming up to frame your face, slide into your hair, touching his forehead to yours in that intimate gesture that’s too fucking sweet for someone who bends people to do his bidding with little more than honeyed, cryptic words.

“I promise you that everything I’ve said - since the day you walked into the church - has been the truth. I’d rather sever my tongue than speak a lie to you. I’d never forgive myself.”

By this point, it doesn’t matter what comes out of his mouth.

He could be reciting the periodic table of elements and you’d be none the wiser, nodding along like a fucking bobble-head, because you’re lost in those eyes like a sailor at sea.

“So, sweet girl… Please believe me when I say that there isn’t anything that our congregation - anything that I - would treasure more than your presence at our sermon this Sunday.”

Silence. That lasts all of fifteen seconds, because this close to him, where you’re sharing the same air and you couldn’t escape that sapphire gaze if you’d kicked and screamed your way out.

“… There’s a barbecue after, right?”

He beams like you’ve just agreed to give him the sky, the stars, the sun - peppers your face with kisses and murmurs thanks against your skin.

Part of you thinks if he’d asked for any of them, you’d die trying.

•

Those fucking blue eyes are going to be the death of you.

You would’ve gouged your eyes out of your skull had you known just how much power they had.

You haven’t seen Joseph wield a gun, and you used to think it was ridiculous because it doesn’t matter how strong his faith is, it wasn’t a Kevlar vest and he’d be perforated like Swiss cheese if he said otherwise in the midst of a firefight.

(You doubt he’d complain about the comparison. Swiss cheese is holy cheese. He’d be a religious dairy product.)

You realize now that he doesn’t pick up a gun because he doesn’t want to - it’s because he doesn’t have to.

Joseph could disarm anyone with a single look.

You’re in the back of the church, leaning against the wall, surveying the area.

You’ve fallen asleep standing-up plenty of times before, so many times that it oughta be concerning, but you have to give credit where credit is due - listening to Joseph’s passionate words reverberate through the church, feeling the acoustics of the sermon echo in your bones, watching the little idiosyncrasies you aren’t sure he’s aware of but you find yourself fixated on.

For the first time since you’d walked into that church - all those months ago - and found a psychopath preaching, shirtless, you aren’t complaining.

Because there’s a thin sheen of sweat glistening off his skin, a few drops trailing down his chest, down his navel - where L U S T is carved for all to see, a visceral display, an unabashed admission of his sin.

Liquid heat pools in your navel as your mind dissolves into less-than-holy thoughts, involving tracing the beads of sweat with your tongue, from the sharp edge of his collarbone to the flat planes of his stomach to the chiseled ‘v’ of his—

You catch his eye for the glimpse of a second, and you look away so sharply that he absolutely knows what‘s running through your head, but to your surprise, you can hear a smile in his voice.

Handsome, smug, half-naked bastard.

Earlier, you‘d asked Joseph to be spared from sitting in the pews, nearly bolted when he said that he’d like for you to stand beside him, along with John and Jacob, for the whole congregation to see.

Upon noticing your unease, discomfort, he said you could make yourself comfortable wherever you saw fit, that you could take all the time you’d need until you were ready to join them.

How many of these fucking things does he want you to attend?

The hour is nearly up - you think he’s giving you a reprieve, will let you come out of this unscathed, because it is the first sermon you’ve attended, surely he’d leave you with your training wheels, wait until you’ve acclimated to this a bit more, let you fade into the background.

But that isn’t really his style, is it?

“My children, I’m sure a few of you have noticed a new soul amongst our flock this afternoon.”

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck—

“Rook?”

Abort, abort, abort—

John and Jacob are at your sides, faster than your brain had registered, and you’re being escorted (dragged) to the front of the church, sandwiched between them.  


You feel like a prisoner being taken to the chopping block.

On the bright side, if anyone decided to kill you - here and now - you’d never have to sit (stand) through another sermon again.

You expected cries of outrage, hollers about the heretic, gunshots reverberating in the space.

The last thing you’d expected was applause.

What in the actual fuck?

“You look surprised, pup,” Jacob chuckles, the sound drowned out by the congregation.

Believe it or not, the last three times I’ve gotten applause, it was because the crowds thought I’d killed your siblings.

“You’re their hero, you know... Our hero,” John murmurs against your ear, lips skimming the sensitive skin there, where you can feel his smile.

Heroes don’t kill hundreds of people.

You don’t know how to address the crowd, aren’t sure if you’re supposed to say something, to thank them or to apologize for the blood that’s been spilled, for the people that might’ve been regulars at this church but are rotting six-feet under—

To your right, Jacob claps a heavy, grounding hand over your shoulder.

To your left, John laces his fingers through yours, tucking himself against your side, placing a firm kiss to your jaw.

In front of you, Joseph cradles your face in his palms, the beads of his rosary grazing your cheek.

Though he looks over your shoulder to speak to his congregation, his fingers never leave your skin, and you’re more glad than you’d care to admit, because if any single one of the brothers let go of you right now, there was a very strong possibility that you’d dissolve into a panic attack.

“Let us rejoice that the savior of Hope County has joined us today — not only physically, but spiritually. Let us rejoice in welcoming a new member to our family. Let us rejoice in our third and final Herald… The Spartan.”

The applause is deafening, but it’s nothing when compared to the looks that the brothers give you.

Jacob’s pride shines through his playful smirk and sharp cerulean eyes.

John’s happiness beams through his mischievous grin and elated pools of cobalt.

Joseph’s adoration bleeds through his revering touch and loving sapphire orbs.

•

Perhaps it’d been a bit much.

Joseph does feel the lightest pinch of guilt for roping you in at the last second, but it isn’t as if he wouldn’t acknowledge — rejoice — your presence at his church, with his flock, with his family.

Because you are family.

That being said, he isn’t surprised to find that, when the bells had chimed, signaling the end of the service, you’d faded from his side as a gaggle of his children swarmed him — thanking him, complimenting him, blessing him — and assimilated into the crowd that left the church, rounding to the back where the barbecue was taking place.

What troubles Joseph is, when his children leave to meander outside and help with preparation, he can’t find you.

And that worries him, because he thinks he might’ve scared you off, which was the last thing he wanted.

He wanted you to know that you’re welcome— that you’re wanted at the sermons, by his side, in his life.

Squeals of laughter tear him from his thoughts, from the congregant who’s happily boasting about their steady numbers of members (a strong, devoted, grand total of 150 - 50 from each brother’s region) and the plentiful supplies that’ll be delivered and stocked in the bunkers by the end of the week, the decrease in violence and scuffles with The Resistance, essentially nonexistent at this point.

When Joseph finds the source of the laughter, his heart warms at the sight.

You hadn’t left. You’d kept your promise. More so than that, not only were you with his children, but you were with their children.

Two kids cling to your biceps - Monica and Daniel, the 9-year-old twins that are wary of John, curious around Faith and trail after Jacob like lost pups, like they want to ask him about his scars but are terrified that he’ll get angry at them for doing so - dangling from your arms, their feet off the ground, swinging merrily, asking you to raise them higher.

There’s a little boy clinging to your shoulders - Ezra, 7-years-old, small for his age, timid and frail, but with his arms around your neck, his legs dangling by your waist, Joseph doesn’t think he’s ever seen the boy smile so much, so brightly, so vividly.

There are only about a dozen children that attend the services - Joseph doesn’t blame the parents for leaving their children at home, not until tensions between Eden’s Gate and The Resistance have faded completely, when they don’t have to worry about the occasional vengeful soul seeking violence for what they’d lost, spitting about betrayal - retribution - when their people aren’t brandishing rifles in the open, a precaution in the face of worst-case scenarios.  
But the few kids that were here for the service and the meal?

Absolutely adored you.

•

“You’d make a wonderful mother.”

You choke on your iced tea.

“Would it kill you to be subtle every once in a while?” You wheeze, after he’s clapped you firmly between your shoulder blades, apologies spilling profusely from his mouth.

“Ezra’s mother told me what you did for him. In the midst of the war, when tensions were so high, so thick, that gunfire and hatred was as bountiful as crops in the spring, you’d shown them mercy. Even when she’d fired at you.”

“… I didn’t do anything. Kid was hacking up his lungs. Would’ve given away my position if I didn’t take him to see Lindsay,” you murmur, sipping from your drink generously, evading the fond look in his eyes by boring holes in the ice cubes in your glass. 

“They could’ve killed you,” Joseph points out softly, that it could’ve been a ruse, that they could’ve used his sickness as a facade to catch you off-guard, to take you out.

“People die all the time,” you shrug, your fingers absentmindedly reaching for the pack of smokes in your jacket.

Before you remember their little rules about nicotine, alcohol, drugs.

Basically, all of the fun stuff was off-limits, which was disappointing in-and-of itself.

But on the bright side, if the decked-out picnic tables are any indication, looks like lunch is ready.

You tilt your head to the tables, and Joseph nods, smiling, as the two of you fall into step together.

“Joseph?”

“Yes, beloved?”

You’ll never get used to that endearment, a vicious blush taking to the apples of your cheeks as you rub the back of your neck abashedly, as you decidedly look at anything but those hypnotic eyes.

“… Thank you. For, uh, y’know. Inviting me. I’m not the most spiritual person around, but I’d be a liar if I said you aren’t a sight to behold when you’re in your element.”

You might as well’ve said that you’d accepted his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, into your heart by the way he beams at you. 

“Does that mean we can expect you at next week’s sermon?”

“Well, that depends…”

“On...?” 

“Do all of your sermons involve you being shirtless or was today just my lucky day?”

The flush that starts at the hollow of his throat and sneaks up the sides of his neck, beneath the stubble on his cheeks, licks at the tips of his ears has absolutely no right to be so fucking adorable. 

“Joseph. I’m just teasing. Well, not really. You’re fu— you’re heavenly,” you cut yourself off midway through the swear, trying to work on it around Joseph, especially when you’re in or around his church, you’re not doing a terrible job, but Rachel’s proposal of a swear jar might not be a bad idea (though you’ll be bankrupt within three days) — “when you’re preaching half-naked. Keep doing that, and I don’t see myself missing a service for the rest of what’s left of this lifetime.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Joseph smiles, your grin infectious and radiant and oh-so-tempting that he can’t help but cradle your face in one hand and lay a delicate kiss to your cheek.

“Get a room!” Comes a voice from the middle of the table, where Monica cuffs her older brother upside the back of the head with The Book of Joseph.

You have no idea where she’d stashed it, but you’d be lying if you said that it wasn’t one of the funniest fucking things you’ve seen in your life.

That was an idea you’d be saving for another day.

An idea that entailed the combination of the game of dodge ball and replacing said balls with Books of Joseph.

Oh, that would be a glorious sermon.

“Guess we oughta keep this G-rated until later, huh?” You tease, nipping the edge of his jaw sweetly.

Joseph has never wanted a service to be over so badly.

Then again, he’s glad for it, because if not, he would’ve missed this. 

Sitting with his children, with his brothers, with the love of his life — eating lunch, telling stories, talking and laughing and smiling like everything was right in the world.

To Joseph, it truly was.

The highlight of the lunch was John and Jacob fighting over the last portions of mac n’ cheese and potato salad, courtesy of you because, “One, you invited me to your church and subsequent barbecue, I couldn’t just not show-up with food, I have a couple of manners, give me a bit of credit here,” and, “Two, I’ve heard enough stories about watery mac n’ cheese and god-awful potato salad to know that death by food poisoning would’ve been a very high possibility.”

“Those dishes were scrumptious delicacies that no one had the proper palate to appreciate!” John insists, as he yanks at the platter of potato salad that you’d made earlier that morning, the mac n’ cheese long-gone after Jacob had renounced proper etiquette and shoveled every last trace of it into his mouth, bits of cheese lodged in his beard.

Jacob has the opposite end of the platter, using one beefy hand whereas John is using both of his tattooed ones.

Briefly, a troublesome gleam shines in Jacob’s eyes, before it’s fading as fast as it’d formed, and his face contorts into something thoughtful, deliberating.

“You know what, John? You’re right. You deserve a little something for gifting us all with those delicious delicacies.”

To which Jacob lets go of the platter altogether, and the platter smacks into John’s face — splattering potato salad across his cheeks, caked into his neatly-trimmed beard, clumping in his hair that takes a solid 20-minutes to style in the mornings, staining the gaudy jacket that he’s killed people (that’s right, plural, people) for accidentally spilling a drop or two of blood on it.

There’s a brief pause - in which John stares, slack-jawed, at the mess of himself, Jacob leans back, arms crossed, smirking like a smug bastard.

Then John catapults over the table and all hell breaks loose.

Joseph’s about to intervene, because this was embarrassing, they’re the faces of Eden’s Gate, they can’t be rolling around in the grass and dirt like children.

You hold him back with a firm hand to his chest, the touch sparking his nerve endings, his breath catching in his throat at the calloused tips of your fingers, the worn lines in your palms, how delectable they felt against his skin.

“No, no, no. Let them hash it out. This is healthy, trust me.”

Your mischievous smile and poor attempts at smothering laughter have Joseph doubting that statement, but when his brothers’ roughhousing melts from hostile to playful, the two of them laughing like the children they once were, the brothers they’d always be, the family they’d always have - Joseph finds himself smiling too.

While everyone’s watching the debacle with hollers and cheers for the eldest and the youngest - the congregation is split, 50/50 - Joseph reaches for your hand and tugs you over to him.

You go without any hesitation, melding into the barricade of his arms, your head tucked beneath his chin, your hands resting above his, humming as his arms tighten around you.

”Think you oughta tell them that you’d made plenty of mac n’ cheese and potato salad, waiting for them back at the ranch?” 

”Hm... In a few minutes. Possibly. I’ve got money riding on this. Put him in a headlock, Jake!”

“Whose side are you on?!” John screeches, Jacob chuffing out a laugh as his baby brother barely dodges a ball of mud aimed straight for his $7,000 coat. 

Joseph shakes his head, but he can’t stop the grin that tears at the seams of his mouth as his brothers laugh through potato salad, dirt and mud.

The family that’d been broken apart by the system, chewed up and spit out by society, haunted, tormented and plagued by their demons for nearly three decades is being put back together, piece-by-piece, with each and every smile, laugh and memory they make.

And it’s all because of the angel in his arms.

He drops a kiss to the top of your head, feels your hum of content against his chest, smiles against your skull.

Joseph’s imagined, dreamt, prayed about the Gates of Eden dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. But at this moment? Joseph swears that it’d pale in comparison to the paradise in front of him.


End file.
